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It’s No Joke

One of the things I’ve been looking for is a really good camera. It has to be just right or it won’t get very much use. I’ve probably seen dozens of them – reviews, zoom tests, ratings … and most of the time I worry about whether or not they’ll work out. One day, I came across a promotion for a brand new camera – one that was designed for left-handers. It sounded too good to be true! And then I looked at the date the promotion was published … April 1st, a few years ago.

Being a left-handed person, finding tools and equipment that work for me and not against me isn’t always easy. I had to have gone through over a dozen can-openers until I found the perfect one. Good scissors are worth their weight in gold. To me, it shouldn’t be a joke that an expensive piece of equipment was made just for left-handed people. Could you imagine it the other way round? If the whole world was designed for left-handed people and as a right-handed person, you were “backwards.” When you go to write on a desk, the arm-rest is on the other side. When you go to take a picture, your stronger hand is just holding the empty side of the camera and your weaker hand has to be the one to steady the shot, operate the controls, and hit the button at the right time. Oh sure, you could operate it upside down, but that’s just as awkward. One day, you come across and right-handed camera … only to discover that it’s a joke and doesn’t work.

Some things just shouldn’t be a joke or made fun of. Like certain rights or beliefs. Can you imagine what it would have been to live in a segregated world and the April Fools Day Prank someone opted to play on you was to convince you that segregation was over? That you could sit at the front counter and anywhere on the bus? Only to be made a fool of and made fun of for believing that segregation ought not be the norm? That’s what I was thinking when I read one of the blogs mentioning that on April 1st many complementarian pastors had voted to permit women to teach and preach. But it was just a joke. After a laugh, nothing really changes for anyone.

One of the pranks I saw made a subversive point – something that we laugh at today is really no laughing matter, many men, women, and children are without basic access to necessities, food, water, shelter, clothing, sanitation, access to medicine, and so they die too young – far too many of them live shorter lives because they don’t have what we have. We often take what we have for granted.

I still don’t know why somebody thought it would be a good joke to announce a left-handed camera. There is a world of left-handed photographers out there who would probably appreciate a camera designed to work for them and not against them. It’s not as if a market for the product doesn’t exist – it does. But the joke is on us that somebody would think about us. I wonder if that’s how many people feel when people make a joke of what they believe to be true.